The sentiment is well received, though the economic arithmetic really differs with time and place. I've always had stable employment and my budget is tighter now than it was 10 years ago. Small basement apartment, no car, no kids, no cable, no addictions, no new clothing, and yet I still watch my takehome checks devoured by utilities, transportation, and medical insurance (despite nominal raises). I have no way of haggling these costs.

So the idea of trading some luxury for a 20-hour work week would be lovely except I have no luxuries to trade, unless we're counting shelter and heat. In another 10 years I'll probably be fishing for roommates on craigslist.

In ultra-running there is a man called Anton Krupicka, who lives out his truck 8 or so months of the year, drives to mountain ranges to fulfil his passion of running, and lives a frugal, simple life. It's ideal. It works, and it's enviable. If you have enough disposable income, buy 'In the High Country' on vimeo. Very insightful, well made short film-umentary thing.. And I'd argue he's as primal as anyone, despite a largely vegetarian diet.
I'm an only child and was given everything. Fast-forward to 21 y.o and life hit me hard. So hard. As much as I crave simplicity, modern life simply isn't, and I really want a PS4! I'm an unfortunate by-product of the 'id' generation, lonely without my things. It's a form of escapism. Life is suffering.

Or the Moneyless Manifesto which is about a guy who has gone the whole hog with this. Its a bit much for me, but interesting reading.

I have read many things like this (and this website as well). I get a lot of good ideas from them, plus best of all it reassures me when I start to feel like survival is becoming too difficult. Too many people get caught up in trying to find hypocrisies in moneyless people rather than learning things they could apply to their own lives right now.

Originally Posted by I_EAT_COWS

It's very hard to even imagine going against our cultural norms when it comes to big stuff like having a house, car, career, etc., and it seems like virtually no one is willing to discuss anything other than reasons why you CAN'T do anything other than what everyone else is doing.
...
I feel that full time work is like a prison sentence, but I acknowledge that the real prison is my own mind keeping me from walking out of my cubicle. That is why I'm talking about it, and why I keep saving and studying all I can about finance and real estate. I don't want to be a freeloader, but I don't feel like I owe my life and soul to the capitalist machine, either.

I have never bought a house. I've never bought a car (but I've owned several that were given to me.) I've only ever had one credit card and I pay it in full. I had one very small student loan, paid off 5 years after graduation. I took out a small loan for a motorscooter once, that too was paid off a million years ago. Other than these things, I have never had any debt. I even paid off my ex-husbands debts.

I always felt like full-time work was a prison sentence, which is partly why it took me until I was 32 to have a full-time job. The other part is it took me way more than 4 years to get my bachelor's degree.

Now I don't think full-time work is exactly a prison sentence. I don't think I would use my time wisely right now if I didn't have a job. I spent some time recently with part-time jobs and they're still as much a prison sentence. What you really want to get out of prison are seasonal jobs. Seasonal jobs you can return to. Then you get time to go do other things but still have a job when the season starts again. I was really happy when I had a seasonal job. It allowed me to spend two winters working and two spring/summers hiking for two years in a row without eating up all my savings.

Originally Posted by Jenry Hennings

In ultra-running there is a man called Anton Krupicka, who lives out his truck 8 or so months of the year, drives to mountain ranges to fulfil his passion of running, and lives a frugal, simple life. It's ideal. It works, and it's enviable.

Yeah, that's the seasonal work lifestyle. It works as long as you are not too enamored with comfort, status and security. The trick is to find out how far you can personally go before you feel like you've gone too far away from your own comforts, and your own measures of status and security. For me, I can go really far for a while, and then I get tired of the discomforts. The worry about what will happen to me when I get old and don't have enough money saved up (there's status and security) also gets to me and brings me back to the world of money. So I've found a line that's just a little too far on the side of money right now, but there's hope it will be better in the future.

The only way to escape the daily grind for the average person is to live frugally, and save and invest as much as you can, and then save and invest some more. If you do it consistently, you can buy your financial independence.

Your wealth is your net worth, i.e. assets minus liabilities. Most people in America have next to zero. This is why you have to keep working. If you have a high enough net worth where ~2-4% of it can cover your yearly expenses, you are free. However, to get that level of net worth within your lifetime, especially before you are old, you need to keep your expenses low. This is the key part. Low expenses have a two-fold effect: 1. they allow you to save more, and 2. they make you need less.

The stuff you own, owns you. You need to dedicate a huge chunk of the most precious commodity you have - time - to get it and to keep getting it. Think about how much of their life people dedicate to buy cars. Take a $25,000 car loan for a $25,000 car for 5 years at 6%, when it is paid off, it will cost $29,000 with the interest included. Now, suppose you drive 12,000 miles a year and your car gets a reasonable 25mpg average, this is 60,000 miles over 5 years, which translates to 2,400 gallons of fuel, for, let's say $3.50 per gallon. That's another $8,400 for gas. Suppose insurance is $90/month. That's $5,400. During those 5 years suppose you'll probably need 10 oil changes, a set of tires and brakes, maybe a few minor repairs, say another $2,000 altogether. So far you have $44,800 spent on the car in 5 years. The car has also depreciated and is now worth far less than what you paid for it.
And, if you're the typical American, now that you've paid it off... It's time for a new one! Trade that one in for $9,000 and get another one for $35,000 this time (hey, you've been working hard and you deserve a nicer car, right?).

If you consider these costs, and especially the opportunity costs of investing a good chunk of that money instead, the cost is staggering. If you invested the same $25,000 over the course of 5 years and never touched it again. After 30 years it would be worth over $200,000 at ~8% interest. Essentially, that $25,000 car will end up costing you close to a quarter million over the upcoming decades. Pretty scary when you apply the greatest force in the universe to it: compound interest.

The only way to escape the daily grind for the average person is to live frugally, and save and invest as much as you can, and then save and invest some more. If you do it consistently, you can buy your financial independence.

Agree, excellent post.

I save 75% of our monthly household income, it goes into investments, they make more money, keeps piling up. It's harder to save when you are younger and just getting started in your career, but even then, people tend to spend way too much…the whole "consumption" cultural thing.

I save 75% of our monthly household income, it goes into investments, they make more money, keeps piling up.

Exactly. Compound interest is incredible when you give it some time.

Nicely done on the 75% by the way! I aim for 50% of yearly income.

Originally Posted by KimchiNinja

It's harder to save when you are younger and just getting started in your career, but even then, people tend to spend way too much…the whole "consumption" cultural thing.

It's definitely harder. However, at the same time, how many young people don't have a smart phone and drive a cheap car? A smart phone plan on contract, which is what the majority use, is typically $200 for the phone, plus $90-150 per month for service. That's $2,300 - $3,800 over two years so you can put "LOL " on Facebook. Then you add relatively nice car, cable, going out with friends and eating out all the time, and of course you have no money to save. Plus, many young people (and older too) have the mentality of retirement being something you worry about when you're old, which is exactly the wrong way to think about it.

I wish there was such a thing as compound interest. But at a fraction of a percent it hardly compounds anymore. And the stock market? I'm fairly scared that the day I can touch all my 401k money the stock market will tank and that'll be the end of all that saving I did. There's nowhere else to put my meager money. I've thought about buying land just to have a place I can pitch a tent if worse came to worst, but most people buy land speculatively and so it's hard to find useful information about buying land just to own it.